We’re doing a briskish trade in love bombs and knitted hearts in the lead-up to Valentine’s Day. I’ll send cards to Dixie and Uggs. I do that every year, even though I never admit to it. I’m fairly sure they know it’s me, though.
The next and final (EEP!) Teen Factor X is the day after Valentine’s and the guys want to do a love song. It will show they have range and don’t just do rock.
‘A very twisted love song, though,’ Dermot says, ‘that would be my choice.’
I wonder if that is because he and Sam Slinky are no more.
‘The poet, Yeats, called love “the twisted thing”, didn’t he?’ This last gem is from Dad. He loves an opportunity to quote a writer and I suspect it is for showing-off purposes. And his tail is definitely up since he got his new job. He’s perky.
‘Such negative talk around a breakfast table,’ Gran says. ‘Is romance dead or something?’
‘Must be,’ I tell her.
Actually, Gran always gets some post on Vally’s Day. She has admirers out there, even at her age!
There is a range of unexpected events on St Valentine’s Day.
First up, I get a card in the post! Unsigned, of course, but I know it’s not from Dixie or Uggs because I text them toot sweet and they deny it and I believe them.*
Dixie is downcast as we trudge to school. Eventually she tells us why.
‘Kev has dropped off the radar. He closed his Facebook account and his phone is dead. Strange.’
‘Ah, maybe it just wasn’t to be, Dix,’ I say, cheering inside as loudly as I ever did out loud at Teen Factor X. Whoever Kev is or was, and whatever he was up to, he has been stopped for now at least.
At school Samantha Slinky looks blonde and shiny and glorious. She is returned to her former self. Her Rottweiler-guard Slinkies are smiling. Dixie rallies from her low spirits and goes off to hunt down the gossip on the grapevine. She returns to tell us, ‘Dermot and Sam are an item again.’
It’s like the old order has been restored. Like the prince has kissed the sleeping beauty and the nasty spell is broken.
We have just arrived in our classroom when Jason Fielding comes through the door with a single red rose and hands it to Dixie. ‘I’m sorry, babe,’† he says. Before I can look away they’ve got into major tongue snoggage that is upsetting at any hour and particularly pre-elevenses.
When she emerges from her clinch, all breathless, she says, ‘Well, if R-Patz and Kristen can give it another try, so can we.’
All morning my mind is branded with the image of that snog = v unsettling.
I scour the canteen for Stevie Lee B at lunchtime, hoping that the sight of him will help erase the mental picture of the Dixie/Tongue snog and tell me if it was him who sent me the card. It’s a long shot, I know, but, to paraphrase the saying, ‘while there’s lurve there’s hope’!
I finally spot him. He’s in a group with the Slinkies. In fact, he is with a Slinky. They are laughing and smiling. He puts his arm around Danielle’s shoulder and I see that she is holding one of our love hearts. My world crashes into smithereens.
‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ I whisper to Dixie.
‘I’m so sorry, Jen. I couldn’t tell you he’d bought one in case it wasn’t for you. I couldn’t break your heart like that.’
No need, I want to tell her, he has already broken it. It feels like it has been torn in two. In reality, I have been waiting for this day for ever. I knew it would come. It had to. And the only betrayal of me is by me. Stevie Lee Bolton never promised me anything. He has never been anything but nice to me, sure, but he hasn’t led me on either. I must settle for knowing that he likes me, thinks I’m a quirky little nut job, the shrimpy sister of his best friend. And if that’s all it is, then that is all I get and I have to accept it. It will take time for my poor heart to heal but maybe that can happen. Maybe some day I’ll get over him.
The happy group is laughing and canoodling when suddenly SLB catches my eye and holds me in his gorgeous gaze. It’s like I’m mesmerized and cannot look away. Then he gives his group a glance and looks back at me, giving a little raise of his eyebrows, as if to say, ‘What the hell.’ It’s confusing, very confusing, but I feel connected to him just enough for this agony to be a little more bearable. Then I remind myself that perhaps there is a tiny part of me that is relieved. Would I really be ready for a real-life relationship? It doesn’t lessen the torture of seeing a Slinky draped around SLB, though.
Gary O’Brien appears, shuffling nervously, which is odd for him. He normally attacks any situation with confidence.
‘Happy Valentine’s Day, Jen.’
‘If you say so,’ I manage.
‘Erm, I was wondering if you were going to the poetry jam next week?’
‘Yeah,’ I say, although I had quite forgotten about it with everything else going on. ‘Why not?’ I murmur, hardly noticing my reply.
‘See you there, then.’ He laughs gormlessly. ‘It’s a date!’
WHAT! No, that is NOT what I meant … Oh, well, I haven’t the resolve or the sheer interest to correct him.
I drift aimlessly through lessons, learning nothing, swaddled in the numb of heartbreak. Then I am rudely jolted from my woe-filled miseries by Uggs and a copy of the local paper.
‘More replies to Dixie’s advert?’ I guess.
‘Not quite,’ he says. ‘This is more front-page news.’
‘OK …’ It is then that I see that he is holding the local local paper and not our schools’ one.
‘You know that mother-and-child group your mum joined?’
‘Uh-huh.’ Now he has my attention.
‘Well, here they are … in the news. Making the news.’
The front-page picture is of a group of breastfeeding mothers protesting in the Barnacle Café, all with their chestage proudly on show, all with a baby latched on. Oh My Actual Mother. Well, she did tell that manager she’d be back, and she has kept her word/threat. Mum and Harry are rebels, taking a stand. I know we wanted her to engage with life again, but this isn’t quite what I had in mind. I just wanted her to get washed and dressed and out of the house for a nice walk every day, not to change the blooming world. Is there no end to what the Quinns can and will get up to?
It’s a lot to deal with, especially on top of a broken heart. But I am proud of Mum, none the less, even if I am not exactly thrilled to see her chestage splashed over the front pages for all to behold.
